Read on and the assembly is NOTHING to do with Reliant, other than Ford used a empty factory that Reliant had previously used and Reliant manufactured the GRP panels, not shells.




Johnny's dad said:


i) The RS200 was not built by Reliant. It was built by Ford, the project director being Mike Moreton, who had already been the planning genius behind the Sierra RS Cosworth, and who would later go on to do the same job with the Sierra Cosworth 4x4, and the Escort RS Cosworth. He was later head-hunted by Tom Walkinshaw to master-mind the Jaguar XJ220 project.

Ford hired all the staff and fitters, Ford managed the plant. Reliant was not involved.

Reliant, however, provided most of the exterior body panels, which were built in GRP. The chassis, though, was provided by Arch, Ford/JKF did the engines themselves, and FF did the four-wheel-drive transmissions.

ii) The RS200 was not built at Tamworth, and never even went close to a three-wheeler, or the three-wheeler plant. It was built at a factory at Shenstone, which was six miles away. This was an ex-Reliant plant which had previously built engines for the three-wheelers, but which had been totally cleared. Ford found it while casting around in 1985 for somewhere to build the cars, and took up a lease for themselves. Reliant was not involved.

iii) Although the Reliant connection was not close, a number of the assembly staff had previously worked at Reliant, but had recently been maded redundant because Reliant was having a hard time. Some Reliant people also build moulds and mouldings for the body panels.

iv) Ford initiated, managed and completed the programme, with Mike Moreton at the helm. Reliant was never involved in the management of the project.

v) BL + Lancia staff certainly visited Shenstone, and drove cars, while the assembly project was active. There was nothing uniqie about this. Simply, it was done so that motorsport rivals could check on the car's progress towards homologation. It was all open and above board. Ford did the same thing themselves, for at this time one of the Boreham staff (John Griffiths) visited BMW (in connection with the M3), Lancia (Delta HF 4x4) and Audi (short-wheelbase Sport Quattro).

vi) There was no such thing as a 'Yamaha engine' in the Taurus SHO. Yamaha provided design/development advice only for such engines, but the final product was a Ford-USA project. Very very little work was ever done on the idea of producing a 2WD version of the RS200, especially once it became known that it was going to be a loss-maker. I certainly attended one meeting, chaired by Mike Moreton, in which certain possibilities were raised, but the project was tentative, very provisional, and no design work was ever carried out, Chief rally engineer John Wheeler was up to his neck in the RS200E project by then, and did not have any time.

vii) The 'factory fire' story is true, the fire being in the unit next door to the RS200 facility. It happened on a late Friday afternoon when the vast majority of staff had clocked off. Mike Moreton was one of only a handful of people still on the premises, and reputedly pushed some completed cars away from the wall in case it caught fire. It did not ....

viii) I can confirm that more than 200 sets of everything were certainly produced, but I can also confirm that because there was such a mighty rush to get the programme completed before the 1 February 1986 deadline, that some cars were by no means complete at final FIA inspection time. Ford knew this, the FIA inspectors knew this, and secrecy was not involved.

This was normal in Group B at the time - and I have authenticated evidence of the same being done in the MG Metro 6R4 and Audi Sport Quattro programmes, for instance.

ix) I can also confirm that Escort Twin-Cam homologation was achieved well in advance of the 1,000 cars being finished, but I can also confirm that more than 1,000 such cars were eventually built at the Halewood factory. The circumstances and - more important - the actual month-by-month production figures, have been published in more than one authoritative book on the subject.

I hope this helps - I could add more boring detail if anyone needs it.